Last iPad unveiled by Steve Jobs now consigned to Apple's 'obsolete' list

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The move to obsolete means Apple will no longer provide hardware services for the product, nor will it supply parts for it.

Apple’s considers a hardware product obsolete if it was discontinued more than seven years ago. The iPad 2 and the iPad 2 3G are now classed as vintage by Apple in the US and Turkey due to local laws, and obsolete in the rest of the world.

The iPad 2 started at $499 for the 32GB Wi-Fi-only model with 16GB of storage and went up to $829 for the 64GB 3G model. It was powered by Apple’s A5 chip, and featured 9.7-inch LED screen.

The iPad 2 would be the last iPad to be unveiled by Apple co-founder and then CEO Steve Jobs. As noted by ZDNet sister site CNET, Jobs made a surprise appearance at the March product launch to personally unveil the iPad 2. He had been on medical leave and died in October that year.

Jobs took a dig at the quality of Samsung’s Galaxy Tab and highlighted an Apple slide that showed the iPad represented 90 percent of the tablet market.

He also criticized rivals like Google for looking at the tablet as if it were the next PC market, describing tablets as “post-PC devices that need to be easier to use than a PC, more intuitive”.

At that stage in the iPad’s evolution, Apple had sold a total of 15 million units.

After that, Apple broadened its range of iPads to include the iPad mini in 2012, then came the iPad Air in 2013, and then the iPad Pro in 2015.